Nature loss 'dwarfs bank crisis'

[Ekiqa]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7662565.stm
Nature loss 'dwarfs bank crisis'
By Richard Black
Environment correspondent, BBC News website, Barcelona

The global economy is losing more money from the disappearance of forests than through the current banking crisis, according to an EU-commissioned study.

It puts the annual cost of forest loss at between $2 trillion and $5 trillion.

The figure comes from adding the value of the various services that forests perform, such as providing clean water and absorbing carbon dioxide.

The study, headed by a Deutsche Bank economist, parallels the Stern Review into the economics of climate change.

It has been discussed during many sessions here at the World Conservation Congress.

Some conservationists see it as a new way of persuading policymakers to fund nature protection rather than allowing the decline in ecosystems and species, highlighted in the release on Monday of the Red List of Threatened Species, to continue.

Capital losses

Speaking to BBC News on the fringes of the congress, study leader Pavan Sukhdev emphasised that the cost of natural decline dwarfs losses on the financial markets.

"It's not only greater but it's also continuous, it's been happening every year, year after year," he told BBC News.

"So whereas Wall Street by various calculations has to date lost, within the financial sector, $1-$1.5 trillion, the reality is that at today's rate we are losing natural capital at least between $2-$5 trillion every year."

The review that Mr Sukhdev leads, The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (Teeb), was initiated by Germany under its recent EU presidency, with the European Commission providing funding.

The first phase concluded in May when the team released its finding that forest decline could be costing about 7% of global GDP. The second phase will expand the scope to other natural systems.

Stern message

Key to understanding his conclusions is that as forests decline, nature stops providing services which it used to provide essentially for free.

So the human economy either has to provide them instead, perhaps through building reservoirs, building facilities to sequester carbon dioxide, or farming foods that were once naturally available.

Or we have to do without them; either way, there is a financial cost.

The Teeb calculations show that the cost falls disproportionately on the poor, because a greater part of their livelihood depends directly on the forest, especially in tropical regions.

The greatest cost to western nations would initially come through losing a natural absorber of the most important greenhouse gas.

Just as the Stern Review brought the economics of climate change into the political arena and helped politicians see the consequences of their policy choices, many in the conservation community believe the Teeb review will lay open the economic consequences of halting or not halting the slide in biodiversity.

"The numbers in the Stern Review enabled politicians to wake up to reality," said Andrew Mitchell, director of the Global Canopy Programme, an organisation concerned with directing financial resources into forest preservation.

"Teeb will do the same for the value of nature, and show the risks we run by not valuing it adequately."

A number of nations, businesses and global organisations are beginning to direct funds into forest conservation, and there are signs of a trade in natural ecosystems developing, analogous to the carbon trade, although it is clearly very early days.

Some have ethical concerns over the valuing of nature purely in terms of the services it provides humanity; but the counter-argument is that decades of trying to halt biodiversity decline by arguing for the intrinsic worth of nature have not worked, so something different must be tried.

Whether Mr Sukhdev's arguments will find political traction in an era of financial constraint is an open question, even though many of the governments that would presumably be called on to fund forest protection are the ones directly or indirectly paying for the review.

But, he said, governments and businesses are getting the point.

"Times have changed. Almost three years ago, even two years ago, their eyes would glaze over.

"Today, when I say this, they listen. In fact I get questions asked - so how do you calculate this, how can we monetize it, what can we do about it, why don't you speak with so and so politician or such and such business."

The aim is to complete the Teeb review by the middle of 2010, the date by which governments are committed under the Convention of Biological Diversity to have begun slowing the rate of biodiversity loss.

Puts the whole financial crisis into perspective.

[Ryan Thunder]

The motherfuckers still havn't done anything towards forest conservation, have they.

For some bizarre reason, I thought we we'd got over that one, at least.

[Enigma]

The motherfuckers still havn't done anything towards forest conservation, have they.

For some bizarre reason, I thought we we'd got over that one, at least.

I think it has here in Canada. For every tree a lumber company cuts down, they have to plant two to replace it. True we are running out of the old growth but unless I am mistaken we are planting more to replace the ones cut down.

[Alyrium Denryle]

The motherfuckers still havn't done anything towards forest conservation, have they.

For some bizarre reason, I thought we we'd got over that one, at least.

I think it has here in Canada. For every tree a lumber company cuts down, they have to plant two to replace it. True we are running out of the old growth but unless I am mistaken we are planting more to replace the ones cut down.

Problem is, you actually need the healthy old-growth forests

[Ekiqa]

Problem is, you actually need the healthy old-growth forests

Yeah. If you look at our provincial and national parks, they are logging zones.

Especially Algonquin Park. There's something like 1,000 miles of loggin roads there that are locked to the public.

And I doubt that they are planting more trees than they are cutting down.

[PeZook]

Poland is actually getting reforested as we speak, and making a ton of money off other people's idiocy (which is driving wood prices up).

Another thing the communists managed to do right, amusingly enough.

[anybody_mcc]

Poland is actually getting reforested as we speak, and making a ton of money off other people's idiocy (which is driving wood prices up).

Another thing the communists managed to do right, amusingly enough.

Same here in Czech Republic, we were never actually much deforested, but communists kept more than 30 percent of the country forested (which is quite good for central European higly industrialized country). The main problem is much of it are monocultures of spruce (getting better now that all the problems associated with it are known) and they are not that good for many of the forest's functions. So simply planting trees, or even having forests of old trees, is not enough, you have to actually plan what to plant and where.

[PeZook]

Same here in Czech Republic, we were never actually much deforested, but communists kept more than 30 percent of the country forested (which is quite good for central European higly industrialized country). The main problem is much of it are monocultures of spruce (getting better now that all the problems associated with it are known) and they are not that good for many of the forest's functions. So simply planting trees, or even having forests of old trees, is not enough, you have to actually plan what to plant and where.

Yeah, you got that right. We have problems with many tree species being driven out of their traditional reserves by more ravenous species. Oak, for example, is a bitch to cultivate properly now that many forests are monocultured. Still, it's better that any trees grow where we want to re-introduce, say, oak, than if it was barren and destroyed completely.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Same here in Czech Republic, we were never actually much deforested, but communists kept more than 30 percent of the country forested (which is quite good for central European higly industrialized country). The main problem is much of it are monocultures of spruce (getting better now that all the problems associated with it are known) and they are not that good for many of the forest's functions. So simply planting trees, or even having forests of old trees, is not enough, you have to actually plan what to plant and where.

Yeah, you got that right. We have problems with many tree species being driven out of their traditional reserves by more ravenous species. Oak, for example, is a bitch to cultivate properly now that many forests are monocultured. Still, it's better that any trees grow where we want to re-introduce, say, oak, than if it was barren and destroyed completely.

That is why you dont cultivate per se. You Fertilize the soil (to simulate burning) and let forest succession take over. This assumes you have natural forest anymore though. One solution at min is to not use fucking monocultures, and also plant underbrush

[CJvR]

Oak, for example, is a bitch to cultivate properly now that many forests are monocultured.

We had an amusing story about Oaks a few years back when Domänverket (the managing authority of state lands) called up the defence ministry and reported that their order was now ready. The order was for a few Oak forrests since the navy was not sure the new concept of iron ships were the way of the future...

There are more forrests in Europe today than a century ago so we are not running out of wood - although the cultivation, burning and logging in the third world are likely shrinking the global forrested areals.


I suspect the greens are pissed that the global financial implosion have pushed their cause of the week off the headline. One would think they would be delighted by a global recession - back to the dark ages is their objective and now they don't even have to pass unpopular policies to get their way.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Oak, for example, is a bitch to cultivate properly now that many forests are monocultured.

We had an amusing story about Oaks a few years back when Domänverket (the managing authority of state lands) called up the defence ministry and reported that their order was now ready. The order was for a few Oak forrests since the navy was not sure the new concept of iron ships were the way of the future...

There are more forrests in Europe today than a century ago so we are not running out of wood - although the cultivation, burning and logging in the third world are likely shrinking the global forrested areals.


I suspect the greens are pissed that the global financial implosion have pushed their cause of the week off the headline. One would think they would be delighted by a global recession - back to the dark ages is their objective and now they don't even have to pass unpopular policies to get their way.

Pardon my ignorance here, but last I checked, european greens were not necessarily neo-luddites.

The plain and simple fact is though, that we humans are going to be the cause of the single biggest mass-extinction since the KT event.

And it is more than wood idiot. You rely on healthy old growth forests for your watersheds, carbon sequestration, protection from wind and erosion. Plus there is that little issue of nature being valuable for its own sake.

Even in europe, where you have more forest than you used to, you do not have healthy forests. Planting trees and ignoring the ecosystem that used to be there in the first place does not a healthy forest make.

[ArcturusMengsk]

I suspect the greens are pissed that the global financial implosion have pushed their cause of the week off the headline. One would think they would be delighted by a global recession - back to the dark ages is their objective and now they don't even have to pass unpopular policies to get their way.

Your avatar about sums up my initial impression of you.